1780 Sumter evades Wemyss in South Carolina On this day in 1780, British Major James Wemyss, commanding a force of 140 horsemen, attempts to surprise 300 South Carolina militiamen under General Thomas Sumter at Fishdam Ford, South Carolina. Instead of capturing Sumter as planned, Wemyss, "the second most hated man in the British army," was wounded in the arm and knee, and captured by Sumter.

Sumter and Wemyss were major figures in the bloody civil war that raged along the Santee River of South Carolina during the American War of Independence. British Colonel Banastre Tarleton, the man Carolinians most hated, for his brutal destruction of life and property, had burned Sumter's plantation on the Santee in the early summer of 1780. Enraged, Sumter recruited a militia, which dubbed him the "Gamecock" for his willingness to fight, and began returning Tarleton's terror tactics in kind.

James Wemyss found his way to the Carolinas after being commanded by British General Charles Cornwallis to find a way to defeat the cagey brigadier general of the South Carolina militia, Francis Marion, known as the "swamp fox." Wemyss, the younger son of a British earl, was just as willing to burn homes and terrify civilians as his less noble counterparts.

Although Wemyss failed to capture Sumter on November 9, his fearsome compatriot Tarleton succeeded in wounding Sumter on November 20, forcing Sumter to give up his command. In his wake, the able Marion took the reigns of power in the Carolinas and was instrumental in driving the British out of the sister colonies to Virginia, where General George Washington would finish the job and the war less than a year later at Yorktown.

1793 William Carey reaches the Hooghly River. Carey (1761 – 1834) English Baptist missionary and a Reformed Baptist minister, known as the "father of modern missions." Carey was one of the founders of the Baptist Missionary Society. As a missionary in the Danish colony, Serampore, India, he translated the Bible into Bengali, Sanskrit, and numerous other languages and dialects.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Carey_(missionary)

1842 The first U.S. design patent, was issued for typefaces and borders patented by George Bruce of New York City (No. D1). This new form of patent was authorized by Act of Congress on 29 Aug 1842. In its text, Bruce wrote "It is difficult to find much in Printer's Types that is new in design if we regard only their characteristic lines, but if we look at the ways in which the figures are varied while the characteristic lines are retained, we find the same variety that would be expected in the portraits of a person painted by many different artists in different positions" and "...these Types are different from all others in their size, proportions, details and impressive effects, containing peculiarities by which they are distinguished..." en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Bruce_(industrialist)

1851 Kentucky marshals abducted abolitionist minister Calvin Fairbank (1816–1898) from Jeffersonville, Indiana, and took him to Kentucky to stand trial for helping a slave escape.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvin_Fairbank

1857 The Atlantic founded in Boston. The Atlantic is an American magazine founded (as The Atlantic Monthly) in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1857. It was created as a literary and cultural commentary magazine. Though based in Boston, it quickly achieved a national reputation, which it held for more than a century. It was important for recognizing and publishing new writers and poets, and encouraging major careers. It published leading writers' commentary on abolition, education, and other major issues in contemporary political affairs.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Atlantic_Monthly

1872 The Great Boston Fire of 1872 started in a dry-goods warehouse then spread rapidly in windy weather, destroying nearly 800 buildings. Damage was estimated at more than $75 million. The fire's bright red glare could be seen in the sky for nearly 100 miles.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Boston_Fire_of_1872

1877 The first U.S. national society for chemists was chartered. The American Chemical Society had been organized in New York City on 20 Apr 1876, though many meetings to form the society had been held previous to that date. The first president was John William Draper. The society was incorporated as a non-profit, nonstock corporation of the state of New York, for "the advancement of chemistry and the promotion of chemical research." It was predated by the Chemical Society of Philadelphia, which was the first such society in the world, and was founded in 1792 by James Woodhouse. portal.acs.org/portal/acs/corg/content

1895 On this day, Indian Inspector E.C. Watkins submits a report to Washington, D.C., stating that hundreds of Sioux and Cheyenne Indians associated with Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse are hostile to the United States. In so doing, Watkins set into motion a series of events that led to the Battle of the Little Big Horn in Montana the following year.

Seven years before the Watkins report, a portion of the Teton Sioux, who lived with Chief Red Cloud, made peace with the U.S. in exchange for a large reservation in the Black Hills of the Dakotas. However, some Sioux refused the offer of confinement on a reservation, and instead united around Chief Sitting Bull and his leading warrior, Crazy Horse. The wisdom of their resistance seemed confirmed in 1874 when the discovery of gold in the Black Hills set off an invasion of Anglo miners into the Sioux reservation. When the U.S. did nothing to stop this illegal violation of lands promised to the Sioux by treaty, more Indians left the reservation in disgust and joined Sitting Bull to hunt buffalo on the plains of Wyoming and Montana.

In November 1875, Watkins reported that the free-roaming Indians were hostile. The government responded by ordering that the Indians "be informed that they must remove to a reservation before the 31st of January, 1876," and promised that if they refused, "they would be turned over to the War Department for punishment." However, by the time couriers carried the message to the Sioux it was already winter, and traveling 200 miles to the reservation across frozen ground with no grass for their ponies or food for themselves was an impossible request.

When, as expected, the Sioux missed the deadline, the matter was turned over to the War Department. In March 1876, the former Civil War hero General Phillip Sheridan ordered a large force of soldiers to trap the Sioux and force them back to the reservations. Among the officers leading the force was George Armstrong Custer, who later that year lead his famous "last stand" against Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse at the Battle of Little Big Horn.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Sioux_War_of_1876%E2%80%9377en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Cloud

1901 Teddy Roosevelt establishes a naval base in the Philippines at Subic Bay, on territory won from Spain during the Spanish-American War.

In 1898, a naval warship, the U.S.S. Maine, had exploded while docked in Cuba. War hawks in the U.S. blamed Spain for the probably accidental explosion, and war between the two nations soon followed. Roosevelt left his post as secretary of the Navy under President William McKinley, signed up for the U.S. cavalry and was promptly deployed to the Caribbean, where he earned the admiration of his countrymen for impassioned leadership and bravery during the Spanish-American War. His popularity as a soldier led McKinley to choose Roosevelt to serve as vice president during his second term. Roosevelt was then thrust suddenly into the presidency upon McKinley's assassination in March 1901.

As president, the former cavalry hero of the Spanish-American War--his unit was known as the "Rough Riders"—ushered in a new imperial era in American foreign affairs. He proceeded to expand America's influence into the Pacific as well as neighboring Latin American countries, such as Panama and Puerto Rico. In November 1901, he issued the executive order to establish a naval base at Subic Bay. He believed that the spot should become the Navy's Pacific headquarters, as the area's rugged jungle terrain would provide an ideal training ground for naval and marine forces.

Roosevelt also viewed a major naval base in the Philippines as a critical strategic asset in light of Japan's growing military might in the Pacific region and increasing political unrest in China. However, opposition from Leonard Wood, governor-general of the Philippines, and various military leaders, who preferred to build up an already existing base at Cavite in the Philippines, eventually derailed Roosevelt's plans to move the Navy's headquarters to Subic Bay. Roosevelt, disgusted with the hostile opposition of the military brass and Governor Wood, abandoned the idea in 1907. He then turned his attention to another potential site for an expanded naval base: Pearl Harbor, in Hawaii.

After the Second World War, Subic Bay's strategic importance was recognized. The harbor became a service port for U.S. forces during the Vietnam War. The base was eventually abandoned and the area was returned to the Filipino government in 1992.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Naval_Base_Subic_Bay

1904 First airplane flight to last more than 5 minutes. The Wrights made 105 flights in 1904, but racked up only 45 minutes in total flight time. The two best flights, on November 9 and December 1, exceeded five minutes and about three miles (4.8 kilometers) in length (almost four circles of the field). Still, many of their flights were short hops and slight accidents were common

1906 Theodore Roosevelt is the first sitting President of the United States to make an official trip outside the country. He did so to inspect progress on the Panama Canal.

1912 Carlisle defeats Army 27-6. Pop Warner was a legendary coach of the Carlisle School for Indians in Pennsylvania (Jim Thorpe played for Warner at Carlisle). On this day, Carlisle hammered Army 27-6. Playing right halfback on the Army team was a future U.S. war hero and president: Dwight D. Eisenhower.

1913 The Great Lakes Storm of 1913 was the most destructive natural disaster ever to hit the lakes. The "freshwater fury", a rapidly deepening cyclone, caused unpredicted gales on the Great Lakes. Eight large ore carriers on Lake Erie sank drowning 270 sailors. Cleveland OH reported 17.4 inches of snow in 24 hours, and a total of 22.2 inches, both all-time records for that location. During the storm, winds at Cleveland averaged 50 mph, with gusts to 79 mph. The storm produced wind gusts to 80 mph at Buffalo NY, and buried Pickens WV under three feet of snow. (9th-11th) (David Ludlum) (The Weather Channel)

1914 In the first ever wartime action by an Australian warship the SMS Emden sunk by HMAS Sydney in the Battle of Cocos. When World War I broke out in the summer of 1914, the Emden was part of Germany's East Asiatic Squadron, commanded by Maxmilian von Spee. While the rest of the squadron set out for the coast of South America, Spee allowed the ship's commander, Karl von Muller, to detach the ship from the rest of the squadron in order to effectively threaten British commerce where it was vulnerable, in the Indian Ocean. Beginning on September 10, the Emden wreaked havoc on Allied commercial interests in the Indian Ocean, raiding the towns of Madras and Penang and capturing over 20 unarmed merchant vessels. Muller's crew also sank two warships, a Russian cruiser and a French destroyer.

On November 9, the Australian light cruiser Sydney surprised the Emden as the latter ship was raiding a British wireless communications station on the Cocos Islands. The attack killed 134 of the ship's crew members, while Muller and the other survivors were taken prisoner by the British. British newspapers at the time praised Muller for his chivalry towards the crews and passengers of the captured vessels. "If all the Germans had fought as well as the captain of the Emden," claimed The Times, "the German people would not today be reviled by the world."

Despite the demise of the Emden on November 9, the exploits of its crew continued, as Muller had put a landing party ashore at nearby Direction Island. The group promptly seized a schooner and sailed to Yemen, crossing the Red Sea and braving Arab attacks on its way to Damascus and finally to Constantinople in May 1915.

1917 Joseph Stalin enters the provisional government of Bolshevik Russia.

1918 Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany abdicates after the German Revolution, and Germany is proclaimed a Republic.

1921 Albert Einstein is awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for his work with the photoelectric effect.

1923 In Munich, Germany, police and government troops crush the Beer Hall Putsch in Bavaria. The failed coup is the work of the Nazis.

1935 The Congress of Industrial Organizations is founded in Atlantic City, New Jersey by eight trade unions belonging to the American Federation of Labor.

1936 A baby panda was caught in the bamboo forests on the mountains that separate China and Tibet, near Tsaopo, China, by a hunting party for Ruth Harkness, a wealthy American socialite. She was assisted by Jack Young, an American-born Chinese hunter and explorer, his wife Su-Lin, and his younger brother Quentin. The baby panda was named Su Lin (Chinese for "A Little Bit Of Something Precious"), and bottle-fed by Harkness during her return to New York, arriving on 18 Dec 1936. As the first giant panda to live in captivity outside China, Su Lin caused a sensation in the media. Su Lin was acquired on 8 Feb 1837 by Brookfield Zoo, Chicago, and was exhibited there until the panda died on 1 Apr 1938.

1938 The kids’ magazine, "Jack and Jill", was published

1938 Mary Martin made her Broadway stage debut. Martin's stardom as a singer, dancer and actress began in New York City in 1938 with her nightly show-stopping rendition of "My Heart Belongs to Daddy" in the Cole Porter musical Leave it to Me. She then made 10 films in four years with Paramount Pictures, but her real power remained on the Broadway stage, where she returned in the 1940s.

1938 Nazi German diplomat Ernst vom Rath dies from the fatal gunshot wounds of Jewish resistance fighter Herschel Grynszpan, an act which the Nazis used as an excuse to instigate the 1938 national pogrom, also known as Kristallnacht.

1940 Warsaw is awarded the Virtuti Militari. The Order Virtuti Militari (Latin for "To Military Valour") is Poland's highest military decoration for courage in the face of the enemy. It was created in 1792 by Poland's King Stanis³aw August Poniatowski and is considered as one of the oldest military decorations in the world still in use.

1948 "This is Your Life" debuted on NBC radio. This is Your Life was the creation of host Ralph Edwards, who was also the host of radio's popular Truth or Consequences. In a 1946 radio broadcast of the latter program Edwards presented a capsule narrative of the past life of a disabled World War II veteran who was having difficulties adjusting to post-war life. Edwards received such positive feedback from this show that he developed the formula for a separate radio program called This is Your Life. It began airing on radio in 1948, and became a live television program in 1952, running on the NBC network until 1961.

1953 Maurice Richard set a National Hockey League record by scoring his 325th career goal

1953 Supreme Court rules Major League baseball exempt from anti-trust laws. The U.S. Supreme Court decides 7-2 that baseball is a sport and not a business and therefore not subject to antitrust laws. The ruling is made in a case involving Yankee farmhand George Toolson, who refused to move from AAA to AA.

1955 Harry Belafonte recorded "Jamaica Farewell" and "Come Back Liza" Harry's next effort in 1956, titled simply Belafonte, reached number one, kick-starting a national craze for calypso music; Calypso, also issued in 1956, topped the charts for a staggering 31 weeks on the strength of hits like "Jamaica Farewell" and the immortal "Banana Boat (Day-O)."

1957 Gordon Gould began to write down the principles of what he called a laser in his notebook during a sleepless Saturday night. By Wednesday morning he had a notary witness and date his notebook. Therein, he had described what he called "light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation," or, from those initials, "laser." Unfortunately, he misunderstood the patent process, and did not file promptly. But, other scientists, Charles Townes and Arthur Schawlow, did file for a patent on their similar but independent discovery of how to make a laser. When Gould belatedly tried to get a patent, it took decades to eventually establish priority and gain what had then grown to be profitable royalties from the established laser industry.

1957 "Jailhouse Rock" by Elvis Presley topped the charts. "Jailhouse Rock" was featured in the Elvis movie of the same name. It is considered one of the best of his 31 movies. Elvis joined the army shortly after this was released.This was #1 on the US pop charts for 7 weeks. It also reached #1 on the Country and R&B charts.

1960 Robert McNamara is named president of Ford Motor Co., the first non-Ford to serve in that post. A month later, he quit to join the newly-elected John F. Kennedy administration.

1961 PGA eliminates Caucasians only rule

1961 USAF Major Robert M White takes X-15 to 101,600 feet. In 1961, the X-15 rocket plane achieved a world record speed of 4,093 mph (Mach 6.04) and reached 101,600 feet (30,970 m or over 19 miles) altitude, piloted by U.S.Air Force Major Robert M. White. Its internal structure of titanium was covered with a skin of Inconel X, a chrome-nickel alloy. To save fuel, the X-15 was air launched from a B-52 aircraft at about 45,000 ft. Test flights between June 8, 1959 and October 24, 1968 provided data on hypersonic air flow, aerodynamic heating, control at hypersonic speeds and piloting techniques for reentry used in the development of the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo spaceflight programs.

1963 "Sugar Shack" by Jimmy Gilmer & the Fireballs topped the charts. "Sugar Shack" was recorded in Clovis, New Mexico at Norman Petty's studio in 1963. The Fireballs recorded the song and took a break before doing another. It is said when they came back Norman had put a keyboard part on. They were upset, but when the song went to #1 they thought different.

1965 The biggest electricity grid failure in U.S. history caused a 13-hour blackout in northeast America and parts of Canada. The power lines from Niagra Falls to New York City were operating near their maximum capacity. At about 5:15 pm, a transmission line relay failed. Now there was insufficient line capacity for New York City. New England and New York are inter-connected on a power grid, and the power that had been flowing toward New York City had to go elswhere, instantly. Unable to handle this overload, generator operators shut down to protect their equipment. Almost the entire grid failed, affecting 80,000 square miles, and 25 million people. In the subways of New York, 800,000 people were trapped.

1965 First NY Knick game postponed (black-out) vs St Louis

1965 Catholic Worker member Roger Allen LaPorte, protesting against the Vietnam War, sets himself on fire in front of the United Nations building.

1967 First issue of Rolling Stone Magazine is published. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by editor and publisher Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J. Gleason. In the very first edition of the magazine, Wenner wrote that Rolling Stone "is not just about the music, but about the things and attitudes that music embraces." This has become the de-facto motto of the magazine.

1968 "Hey Jude" by the Beatles topped the charts. "Hey Jude" was going to be the B-side to "Revolution," but it ended up the other way around. It is a testament to this song that it pushed "Revolution" to the other side of the record. This is the most commercially successful Beatles song. It was #1 in at least 12 countries and by the end of 1968 had sold more than 5 million copies.

1970 Vietnam War: The Supreme Court of the United States votes 6 to 3 against hearing a case to allow Massachusetts to enforce its law granting residents the right to refuse military service in an undeclared war.

1975 The Eastern Shore Lutheran Mission was dedicated near the historic site of Williamsburg, Virginia.

1979 Nuclear false alarm: the NORAD computers and the Alternate National Military Command Center in Fort Ritchie, Maryland detected purported massive Soviet nuclear strike. After reviewing the raw data from satellites and checking the early warning radars, the alert is cancelled.

1982 Seven tornadoes touched down in southern California, three of which began as waterspouts. The waterspouts moved ashore at Point Mugu, Malibu, and Long Beach. The Long Beach tornado traveled inland ten miles causing much damage. (The Weather Channel)

1984 Vietnam Veterans Memorial ("3 Servicemen") completed. The soldiers are purposefully identifiable as White American, Black American, and Hispanic. The statue and the Wall appear to interact with each other, with the soldiers looking on in solemn tribute at the names of their dead comrades. It has been suggested that the sculpture was positioned especially for that effect.

1985 Garry Kasparov, 22, of the Soviet Union becomes the youngest World Chess Champion by beating Anatoly Karpov, also of the Soviet Union.

1987 Showers and gusty winds associated with a cold front helped extinguish forest fires in the Appalachian Region and clear out smoke in the eastern U.S. Thunderstorms produced locally heavy rains from eastern Texas to the Tennessee Valley. Longview TX received 3.12 inches of rain, including two inches in two hours, Tupelo MS was soaked with 2.80 inches of rain. (The National Weather Summary)

1989 Cold War: Fall of the Berlin Wall. Communist-controlled East Germany opens checkpoints in the Berlin Wall allowing its citizens to travel to West Germany. This key event led to the eventual reunification of East and West Germany. When a government statement that crossing of the border would be permitted was broadcast on November 9, 1989, masses of East Germans approached and then crossed the wall, and were joined by crowds of West Germans in a celebratory atmosphere. The Wall was subsequently destroyed by a euphoric public over a period of several weeks, and its fall was the first step toward German reunification, which was formally concluded on October 3, 1990.

1990 President Bush announces doubling of US forces in Gulf.

1994 The first atom of element 110 was detected at the Gesellschaft für Schwerionenforschung (GSI) in Darmstadt, Germany, by an international group of scientists lead by Peter Armbruster and Sigurd Hofmann. A thin lead foil target was bombarded with accelerated nickel atoms. A lead nucleus fused with a nickel nucleus to form a new nucleus of element 110, an isotope with atomic mass number of 269. After a small fraction of a thousandth of a second, it decayed into lighter elements by emitting alpha-particles which are the nuclei of helium atoms. It was known as ununnilium, symbol Uun until named in 2003 as darmstadtium, symbol Ds. In the 1980's, elements 107 (Bh), 108 (Hs), 109 (Mt) were also created there.

1998 Brokerage houses are ordered to pay 1.03 billion USD to cheated NASDAQ investors to compensate for their price-fixing. This is the largest civil settlement in United States history.

1799 Asa Mahan, Verona, New York. Congregational clergyman and the first president of Oberlin College, founded by evangelist Charles Finney. In a leading advance for the times, he insisted that the school take students without regard to their race or sex. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asa_Mahan

1801 Gail Borden (d 1874) American manufacturer who invented a commercial method of condensing milk by heating it in a vacuum to preserve it (patented 19 Aug 1856, U.S. No. 15,553) and investigated other food concentrates. He began with a process (patented 5 Feb1850, No. 7,066) that cooked meat extracts with flour to form a meat biscuit capable of long term storage. When he devised a way to preserve milk by condensing it, he created a market in big cities which were distant from the farm sources, as well as supplying the military, travellers and seamen. The dairy company he founded (renamed Borden, Inc., in 1968) expanded and diversified to become a sizable conglomerate.images.search.yahoo.com/search/images;_ylt=A0PDoYCDRZ5QCW4AwOSJzbkF?p=Gail+Borden+&fr=ush-mailn&ei=utf-8&n=30&x=wrt&y=Search

1802 Elijah Parish Lovejoy (d 1837) American Presbyterian minister, journalist, and newspaper editor who was murdered by a mob in Alton, Illinois for his abolitionist views.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elijah_Parish_Lovejoy

1825 Ambrose Powell Hill (d 1865), Confederate general in the American Civil War. He gained early fame as the commander of "Hill's Light Division," becoming one of Stonewall Jackson's ablest subordinates. He later commanded a corps under Robert E. Lee in the Army of Northern Virginia before his death in battle just prior to the end of the war.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A._P._Hill

1836 Samuel Hill, Christian business traveler. In 1899 Hill, John Nicholson and W.J. Knights co_founded the Gideons, a Christian organization that ministers through distribution of the Scriptures. To date, the Gideons have placed over 12 million Bibles and 100 million New Testaments. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gideons_International#History

1853 Stanford White (d 1906) American architect and partner in the architectural firm of McKim, Mead, and White, the frontrunner among Beaux-Arts firms. He designed a long series of houses for the rich and the very rich, and various public, institutional, and religious buildings, some of which can be found to this day in places like Sea Gate, Brooklyn. His design principles embodied the "American Renaissance".

1871 Florence Rena Sabin (d 1953) American anatomist who was one of the first women physicians to pursue a research career. Her investigation of the lymphatic system proved that it developed from the veins in the embryo and grew out into tissues, the reverse of then prevailing understanding. In 1903, she became the first woman on the faculty at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. It had initially been reluctant to hire a woman, but she had shown exceptional skill in papers published during a fellowship there. She moved in 1925 to head the cellular immunology section at the Rockefeller Institute, where she researched the body's white blood cells reaction to tuberculosis infection. In 1926, she was the first woman elected to the National Academy of Sciences.

1874 Albert Francis Blakeslee (d 1954) American botanist and geneticist whose international recognition began with his Ph.D. degree thesis on his discovery of sexuality in the lower fungi (Sexual Reproduction in the Mucorineae, 1904) was significant to the understanding of sexual reproduction of the lower plants. His study of the mutation and geographical distribution of the jimson weed, Datura, provided important information concerning chromosome behavior, genetic balance, and species evolution. He discovered that the alkaloid colchicine causes chromosone duplication in plants - the first demonstration of chemical mutagenesis - which led to commerical production of giant strains of flowers. . He is best known for his research on the poisonous jimsonweed plant and the sexuality of fungi.

1885 Hermann Weyl (d 1955) German-American mathematician whose widely varied contributions in mathematics linked pure mathematics and theoretical physics. He made significant contributions to quantum mechanics and the theory of relativity. He attempted to incorporate electromagnetism into the geometric formalism of general relativity. Weyl published Die Idee der Riemannschen Fläche (1913) which united analysis, geometry and topology. He produced the first guage theory in which the Maxwell electromagnetic field and the gravitational field appear as geometrical properties of space-time. He evolved (1923-38) the concept of continuous groups using matrix representations. Applying group theory to quantum mechanics he set up the modern subject

1886 Ed Wynn (d 1966) popular American comedian and actor noted for his Perfect Fool comedy character, his pioneering radio show of the 1930s, and his later career as a dramatic actor.

1898 Leonard Carmichael (d 1973) U.S. psychologist and educator who was among the first scientists to study and catalogue the earliest development of children. Of his many books, Manual of Child Psychology, is a classic. From 1953-64 he was the 11th secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. Responsible for the modernization of the "nation's attic," he guided the creation of the Museum of History and Technology, and the addition of two new wings on to the Museum of Natural History. In 1964, Carmichael became the Vice-President for Research and Exploration at the National Geographic Society where he sponsored exciting and ground-breaking projects such as the work of Jacques-Yves Cousteau, or the Leakeys in East Africa, or Jane Goodall's work on the behaviour of primates.

1913 Hedy Lamarr (d 2000) Austrian-born American actress of Jewish descent. Though known primarily for her film career as a major contract star of MGM's "Golden Age", she also co-invented an early technique for spread spectrum communications, a key to many forms of wireless communication.

1915 Robert Sargent Shriver, Jr. American Democratic politician and activist. Known as "Sargent", Shriver is best known as part of the Kennedy family, as the driving force behind the creation of the Peace Corps, and as the Democratic Party's replacement candidate for U.S. vice president — having replaced nominee Thomas Eagleton, who resigned from the ticket — during the 1972 U.S. presidential election.

1918 Spiro Theodore Agnew (d 1996) 39th Vice President of the United States, serving under President Richard Nixon, and the 55th Governor of Maryland. He was also the first Greek American to hold these offices.

1922 Dorothy Jean Dandridge (d 1965) American actress and popular singer, and was the first African American to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress.

1923 Alice Marie Coachman Albany, Georgia, American former athlete. She specialized in high jump, and was the first black woman to win an Olympic gold medal

1928 Anne Sexton (d 1974) American poet, known for her highly personal, confessional verse. She won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1967. Themes of her poetry include her suicidal tendencies, long battle against depression, and various intimate details from her own private life, including her relationship with her husband and children.

1931 Dorrel Norman Elvert "Whitey" Herzog former professional baseball manager inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame on July 25, 2010. Born in New Athens, Illinois, Herzog made his Major League Baseball debut as a player in 1956 with the Washington Senators. When his playing career ended in 1963, Herzog went on to perform a variety of roles in Major League Baseball, including scout, manager, general manager and farm system director. Most noted for his success as a manager, Herzog led the Kansas City Royals to three consecutive playoff appearances from 1976 to 1978. Hired by Gussie Busch in 1980 to helm the St. Louis Cardinals, the Cardinals won the 1982 World Series and made two other World Series appearances under Herzog's direction.

1934 Carl Edward Sagan (d 1996) American astronomer, astrophysicist, author, cosmologist, and highly successful popularizer of astronomy, astrophysics and other natural sciences. During his lifetime, he published more than 600 scientific papers and popular articles and was author, co-author, or editor of more than 20 books. In his works, he advocated skeptical inquiry and the scientific method. He pioneered exobiology and promoted the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI).

1935 Robert "Bob" Gibson nicknamed "Hoot" and "Gibby", former American Major League Baseball right-handed pitcher. He played his entire 17-year baseball career with the St. Louis Cardinals (1959-1975). A nine-time All-Star selection, Gibson accumulated 3,117 strikeouts during his career, won two Cy Young Awards, was named the National League's (NL) Most Valuable Player (MVP) in 1968, and was a member of two World Series championship teams. He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1981.

1936 Daniel Robert "Bob" Graham American politician. He was the 38th Governor of Florida from 1979 to 1987 and a United States Senator from that state from 1987 to 2005. Following a failed bid for the Democratic Party nomination in the 2004 presidential race, Graham was considered a possible running mate for John Kerry.

1936 Mary Allin Travers (d 2009) American singer-songwriter and member of the folk, pop group Peter, Paul and Mary, along with Peter Yarrow and (Noel) Paul Stookey. Peter, Paul and Mary was one of the most successful folk-singing groups of the 1960s.[2] Unlike most folk musicians who were a part of the early 1960s Greenwich Village music scene, Travers actually grew up in that New York City neighborhood.

1939 Paul Drummond Cameron American psychologist and sex researcher. While employed at various institutions including the University of Nebraska he conducted research on passive smoking and several other topics, but he is best known today for his claims about homosexuality. After a successful 1982 campaign against a gay rights proposal in Lincoln, Nebraska, he established the Institute for the Scientific Investigation of Sexuality, now known as the Family Research Institute (FRI). As FRI's chairman, Cameron has written papers associating homosexuality with perpetration of child sexual abuse and reduced life expectancy. In 1983, the American Psychological Association expelled Cameron for non-cooperation with an ethics investigation, although by his own account he had resigned from the organization the previous year. Position statements issued by the American Sociological Association and Canadian Psychological Association have accused Cameron of misrepresenting social science research.

1941 Thomas Richard "Tom" Fogerty (d 1990) musician best known as the guitarist in Creedence Clearwater Revival and the elder brother of John Fogerty, the lead singer and guitar player in that band.

1942 Thomas Daniel Weiskopf American professional golfer who played on the PGA Tour and the Champions Tour. His most successful decade was the 1970s.

1947 Robert David Hall American actor, best known for his role as coroner Dr. Albert Robbins M.D. on the television show CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.

1948 Sharon Strouder, Altadena, CA, American swimmer. She was fifteen when she won three golden and one silver medals in the 1964 Summer Olympics.

1951 Louis Jude "Lou" Ferrigno American actor, fitness trainer/consultant, and retired professional bodybuilder. Ferrigno won an IFBB Mr. America title and two consecutive IFBB Mr. Universe titles. He appeared in the television series The Incredible Hulk (playing David Banner's bulky alter ego, the Hulk), the bodybuilding documentary Pumping Iron, European-produced fantasy-adventures including Sinbad of the Seven Seas and Hercules, and most recently in the 2009 comedy I Love You, Man. He had a recurring role, as himself, in the sitcom The King of Queens.

1952 Sherrod Campbell Brown junior United States Senator from Ohio and a member of the Democratic Party. Before his election to the U.S. Senate, he was a member of the United States House of Representatives, representing Ohio's 13th congressional district from 1993 to 2007. He previously served as Ohio Secretary of State (1983-1991) and a member of the Ohio House of Representatives (1974–1982).

1865 Henry Ballantine (Ballentine), missionary to India who helped translate Bible into Marathi. Educated at the University of Ohio and at Princeton, Union (Virginia) and Andover seminaries, he was sent by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions to India in 1835 and was stationed at Ahmadnagar. Besides assisting in the translation of the Bible into Marathi, he also translated and wrote hymns in that language.

1880 Edwin Laurentine Drake (b 1819), also known as Colonel Drake, American oil driller, popularly credited with being the first to drill for oil in the United States.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_Drake

1924 Henry Cabot Lodge (b 1850) American statesman, a Republican politician, and a noted historian. While he did not claim the title, he is considered to be the first Senate majority leader.

1938 Edward Murray East (b 1879) American plant geneticist, botanist, agronomist, and chemist, who contributed to genetic theory and to the development of hybrid corn (maize) by applying inbred strain breeding. This was a revolutionary method of seed production and improved corn crops around the world. He analyzed the protein and fat content of corn to increase its nutritional value as animal feed. East studied the genetics and breeding not only of corn, but also tobacco and potatoes. He independently discovered the phenomenon later called "multiple factors" that gives a Mendelian interpretation for "blending inheritance." He also made important studies of self- and cross-incompatibility, heterosis, cytoplasmic heredity, and hybridization.

1944 Frank James Marshall (b 1877), U.S. Chess Champion from 1909–1936, and was one of the world's strongest chess players in the early part of the 20th century.

1952 Chaim Azriel Weizmann, (b 1874) Zionist leader, President of the Zionist Organization, and the first President of the State of Israel. He was elected on 1 February 1949, and served until his death in 1952. Weizmann was also a chemist who developed the ABE-process, which produces acetone through bacterial fermentation. He founded the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel.

1952 Philip Murray, American labor leader and 1st president of the United Steelworkers and longest-serving president of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (b. 1886)

1953 Dylan Marlais Thomas (b 1914) Welsh poet and writer who wrote exclusively in English. In addition to poetry, he wrote short stories and scripts for film and radio, which he often performed himself. His public readings, particularly in America, won him great acclaim; his sonorous voice with a subtle Welsh lilt became almost as famous as his works. His best-known works include the "play for voices" Under Milk Wood and the celebrated villanelle for his dying father, "Do not go gentle into that good night". Appreciative critics have also noted the superb craftsmanship and compression of poems such as "In my Craft or Sullen Art" and the rhapsodic lyricism of "Fern Hill'".

1970 William Levi Dawson (b 1886) African American politician and lawyer who was involved in local politics in Illinois, representing that state for over twenty-seven years in the United States House of Representatives.

1970 Charles de Gaulle, French military commander, politician, President of France (b. 1890)

1988 John N. Mitchell, United States Attorney General (b. 1913)

1997 Carl Gustav Hempel (b 1905) German-born U.S. philosopher who was one of the leaders of the Berlin school of logical positivism. The group viewed the task of science as that of showing phenomena to be the consequence of unbroken laws. He emigrated to the USA in 1937 because of Nazism.With Paul Oppenheim, he published an account of the deductive- nomological explanation. In this model, the explanation of a fact is reduced to a logical relationship between statements: the explanandum is a consequence of the explanans. This is a common method of logical positivism. Pragmatic aspects of explanation are not taken into consideration. Another feature is that an explanation requires scientific laws; facts are explained when they are subsumed under laws.

2003 Arthur William Matthew “Art” Carney (b 1918) Academy Award winning American actor in film, stage, television and radio. He is best-known for playing Ed Norton, opposite Jackie Gleason's Ralph Kramden in the situation comedy The Honeymooners.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_Carney

2003 Stephen A. Benton (b 1941) American physicist who was a pioneer in medical imaging and fine-arts holography. His fascination with optical phenomena began with the 3-D glasses he used as an 11-year-old to watch te 1953 movie "House of Wax." In 1968, he invented the "rainbow holograms" as seen on credit cards while working for Polaroid Corporation. He turned to academia as an assistant professor at Harvard (1968) and later a professorat Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 1985 where he helped set up the Spatial Imaging Group and headed the M.I.T. media art and sciences program. Benton was a pioneer in natural light holography as a artistic medium, and was a curator at the Museum of Holography in Manhanttan until it closed in 1992.«

2006 Edward Rudolph "Ed" Bradley, Jr. (b 1941) American journalist, best known for twenty-six years of award-winning work on the CBS News television program 60 Minutes. During his earlier career he also covered the fall of Saigon, was the first black television correspondent to cover the White House, and anchored his own news broadcast, CBS Sunday Night with Ed Bradley. He received several awards for his work including the Peabody, the National Association of Black Journalists Lifetime Achievement Award, and nineteen Emmy Awards.

Christian Feast Day:

Dedication of the Basilica di San Giovanni in Laterano, Cathedral of the Pope (memorial feast day)